Srinivas Padma: Personal Musings on Life, Growth, and Connections

Working in a cool, comfortable office sure feels good, but there are facts about centralized air-conditioned offices that could make you catch your breath - literally. Contrary to claims of filtering out impure air, the AC ducts could actually be health hazards themselves, causing a number of air-borne diseases. "Low temperatures in air ducts are conductive to the growth of many fungi and algae, which cause infections", says Dr V. Nageshwar, consultant interventional pulmonologist at Wockhardt Hospital, Hyderabad. Breathing the air circulated through these ducts could make you sicker than you believed possible, because AC maintenance personnel have been known to have cleared out buckets of dust, packs of mould, dead rats and rotting from the ducts! The problem is so widespread that the World Health Organization even coined a term for it Sick building Syndrome, or SBS, meaning buildings where faulty heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, among other fac...

Newyork: Just give a second thought before you perch the laptop computer on your lap it can affect your fertility. Researchers in the United States have carried out a study and found that the heat generated by the laptops raises the risk of infertility in men who balance the machines on their lap, the WebMD reported. "Working on laptop computers in a laptop position causes significant scrotal temperature elevation as a result of heat exposure and posture-related effects," according to lead researcher Prof Yefim Sheynkin. Prof Sheynkin and his fellow researchers at the State University of New York came to the conclusion after studying 29 healthy young men aged between 21 and 35 for two, one hour sessions in a climate controlled room.

According to a new research review by Japanese researchers, longer work outs that last more than half an hour may boost your good cholesterol. What is Cholesterol? Cholesterol is a fatty substance that is found in the body tissue and blood of all animals. The liver manufactures about 80 per cent of the cholesterol in our bodies. The other 20 per cent comes from the food that we eat. There are two types of cholesterol good and bad. While too much bad cholesterol can cause heart disease, good cholesterol helps to remove bad cholesterol from the walls of arteries and transports it to the liver for elimination. Unlike low-density lipoprotein (LDL) or bad cholesterol, a rise in high-density lipoprotein (HDL) or good cholesterol is considered positive for heart health. At least two hours per week of aerobic exercise such as walking, biking, or swimming, preferably in sessions lasting for more than half an hour, may boost the good cholesterol, said new research review published in the Japanes...